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"Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe [$6-$7 per gallon]" - Obama Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

As the price of gas reaches $4 per gallon in some parts of the United States, placing additional financial hardships on all of us, it is worth remembering that high gas prices have been promoted by liberals (because liberals are for the working man, or something). Liberals believe high gas prices are the way to wean us unenlightened neanderthal-like human knuckle-draggers off of our fossil fuel addiction and onto alternative energy sources, like electric cars. No word from liberals on where the additional electricity for all those electric cars will come from. Liberals mumble a bit about solar and wind power, but that is little more than a pipedream fantasy. Those energy sources don't come close to providing the necessary energy requirements. I rather doubt they ever will, not that I'm against them. I'm not. I'm for them, but they are marginal energy sources. We need major energy sources.

Even though I write about politics, I hate politics. More precisely, I hate most politicians. I have never seen a bigger bunch of lying thieves in my life than the people we elect to run our country. It would take a hearty dose of sodium pentathol to get most of them to tell the truth. I think the first definition of the word 'politician' in the dictionary should be 'professional liar'. Mirriam-Webster should be notified immediately.

The new format has presented some challenges, and I'm working with ohio.com to get some of the issues corrected. If anyone has any complaints, register them here (if you can. Getting comments posted is one of the issues). I have a couple issues I'm currently trying to get addressed, namely...

Issue - Commenters receive e-mail notifications every time somebody replies to one of their comments. This one drove me nuts because as moderator, I receive e-mails every time anyone comments. I was getting lots of e-mails.

I'm going to be out of town until the end of next week, and my opportunities to blog will be limited. I'll try to post something if possible, but no guarantees.

I thought I'd leave you with this e-mail I received yesterday from a friend. It compares how things are now to how they were when President Obama took office in January 2009. The following data is a few months old, but on most fronts things have only gotten worse. The only area in which I see any improvement over the last few months is in unemployment. Those numbers have gotten slightly better, though unemployment is still our biggest immediate problem. The deficit/debt situation is our biggest long-term structural challenge, and that's the one that threatens our future as a country. As I wrote in my last post, Obama is failing miserably in dealing with that problem.

Yesterday, I was expecting to hear President Obama lay out his plan for eliminating our $1.6 trillion deficit and start dealing with our $14.3 trillion debt. What I heard instead was an Obama 2012 re-election campaign speech. If Obama was looking to fan the flames of partisan division, he certainly accomplished that. His speech was highly partisan. If Obama was looking to actually solve our dire fiscal situation, as you would expect from the leader of the country, then he failed miserably. You lose, America.

Even if you are naive enough to believe every word Obama said in his speech (which would require a huge dose of naivete), his "plan" doesn't come anywhere near to solving our problems. He proposed $4 trillion in deficit reduction over ten years, with half of that coming from shadowy promises of unnamed spending cuts, and the other half coming from tax increases, with many of those also falling into the shadowy category. About the only solid proposal he made was reversing the Bush tax cuts for the top 2%. That's hardly a new idea, and certainly didn't warrant a new speech from the President.

I don't know a softer way to put this. When it comes to federal spending and revenue, left-wingers are shameless liars, or morons. The standard talking point from the left goes like this - the Bush tax cuts caused huge deficits, and are the major reason we have a $1.6 trillion deficit today.

During the recent 2011 budget battle that resulted in a $38.5 billion spending cut deal (golf clap), President Obama enjoined Congress to "act like grown-ups", adding that this was no time to play games. I couldn't agree more, but it seems his own Democratic party didn't get the message. We need to have adult conversations about how to cut spending and deal with our debt/deficit problem, but there seem to be precious few adults on the President's side of the aisle these days. Instead of acting like adults, Democrats have been dusting off all their moldy old juvenile scare tactics and demonizations.

I have several examples of the Democrat kiddie parade throwing their tantrums in the presence of adults.

We have Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) telling Democrats to always use the word "extreme" when referring to Republican budget cut proposals. And Schumer was talking about the minor $61 billion in cuts Republicans proposed for 2011. One can only imagine what term Schumer will use for the much larger cuts that Republicans will propose for 2012. I'd like to ask Schumer what word he would use to describe the $1 trillion in spending INCREASES the Democrats presided over when they took total control of Congress from 2007-2010. That's what I call extreme.

We're over six months into FY2011 (the government's fiscal year runs from October 1-September 30), and Congress has still not passed a budget for FY2011. There will be a government shutdown at midnight unless Congress can pass a budget or another temporary continuing resolution (CR) today.

First, I must say...Heckuva job, Congress. Thanks for NOT doing the job we elected you to do. Thanks for proving to me once again how well-founded is my skepticism of the government, as if the $14 trillion federal debt and the $1.6 trillion deficit wasn't proof enough already. If I find any solace from a government shutdown, it will come from the fact that members of Congress won't get their paychecks (at least I hope they won't).

"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which iswrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the factsthey misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions,it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ...And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are notwarned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit ofresistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right asto the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lostin a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed fromtime to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.It is its natural manure." - Thomas Jefferson

Yesterday, I mentioned how the more power we cede to the government, the more corrupt that government becomes.